With powdered alcohol now legal, will campuses say bottoms up or no shot?

First there was the Cronut. Then came the Lime-A-Rita. And now, Palcohol is giving it a shot in the alcohol industry. Literally.

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau approved a new product on Wednesday called Palcohol, a powdered alcohol substance made by the Lipsmark company. Several states are already debating the legality of this product, prompting many students to wonder how this new form of alcohol consumption will impact college campuses.

According to the company’s website, the product won’t be sold to the public until the summer. But safety concerns have lead multiple states – including South Carolina, Louisiana and Vermont — to ban the product preemptively, while others – such as Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Massachusetts — have proposed obstructive legislation.

Alex Kletz, an Emory University senior and resident adviser of a freshman dorm, says the product raises many safety concerns.

“I worry students won’t know how to use it just because it is so new,” Kletz says. “And once they try to use it, I feel like it could go wrong.”

While students take a mandatory alcohol education course before starting their freshman year, Kletz says they likely lack knowledge about powdered alcohol.

“My guess is that students would probably (mix Palcohol with) other alcohol instead of water, which would get them even more drunk than it should,” Kletz says. “So I think from the medical perspective you’re going to get a lot of backlash, a lot more EMS calls.”

This is just one of the concerns critics have voiced about Palcohol. Others, such as New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, worry consumers might snort the product, use it to spike drinks or sneak it into venues. In his letter to the FDA, Schumer called Palcohol the “Kool-Aid of teen binge drinking.”

(Photo courtesy of Palcohol)

On the company’s website, creator Mark Phillips addresses these concerns, arguing that his product is just as safe as liquid alcohol. In a YouTube video he notes that snorting the product is very painful and asks: “Why would anyone choose to spend an hour of pain and misery snorting all of this powder to get one drink in their system when they could just – oh, I don’t know — drink a shot and accomplish the same thing.”

Jonas Rosen, a Vanderbilt senior, agrees. The powdered substance, he says, won’t be appealing considering the abundance of liquid alcohol on college campuses.

“People would be intrigued by it at first, but I don’t know if it would really catch on or hold a high appeal because it doesn’t seem to offer any greater convenience,” Rosen says.

Rosen, who is of legal drinking age, says he would consider trying Palcohol once for fun but that he prefers sticking to the alcohol he knows. But he says the substance could have other legitimate uses off of college campuses.

“It seems to offer a lot of practicality in terms of weighing a lot less for shipping purposes on airlines — stuff like that,” Rosen says. “But I think it only would be really useful in certain settings.”

Phillips had a certain goal in mind when he created Palcohol — to satisfy the craving he had for a drink at the end of a long hike. So he set out to create a form of alcohol that wouldn’t weigh him — or his backpack — down.

Robert Goddard, a professor at Emory Universuty whose Sugar and Rum coursedelves into the history of the two industries, isn’t convinced. He says that the hikers he knows don’t crave alcohol at the end of their hikes. Instead, Goddard says Palcohol takes away two of alcohol’s most important components: water and the brand.

“To me this thing is a joke because people consume the brand, not the alcohol.” Goddard says. “The liquor companies wouldn’t be some of the biggest advertisers in the world if the advertising didn’t count.”

Goddard doesn’t think the product will be a hit with consumers, regardless of whether they are liquor connoisseurs or college students looking to have a good time.

And Colgate sophomore Eli Brick agrees. He says he doesn’t think this will change the drinking scene at Colgate or any other college campus. While Brick thinks powdered alcohol might be easier to hide from RA’s looking to break up a pregame, he says underage students who want to drink will find a way — Palcohol or no Palcohol.

“I don’t really see the appeal [of powdered alcohol] over just getting liquid alcohol because I don’t really think that’s a challenge most college students face,” says Brick. “There’s definitely going to be drinking and underage drinking on college campuses. I don’t view this product as a game changer.”

Rachel Rosenbaum is a student at Emory University and a spring 2015 USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent.